Maverick Carter Key To Making Fenway Sports Management Deal Work

Carter, a childhood friend of James, is entering his sixth year as LRMR CEO

Heat F LEBRON JAMES last week announced a “potentially groundbreaking” deal with Fenway Sports Management, and MAVERICK CARTER is the “key in making this new alliance work,” according FOX SPORTS' Jason Whitlock, who profiles the LRMR CEO under the header, "Maverick Carter Out To Silence Critics." If “things go right, the deal turns Maverick into a shark, ready to hunt in an ocean that just eight months ago we assumed would drown him.” Carter is the “undistinguished childhood friend LeBron James put in charge of his global-icon aspirations,” but “The Decision” special on ESPN is "all we really know about" him. The sports world “views him as The King's Reach, an incompetent, in-over-his-head jock-sniffer rewarded with an undeserved position of power.” The “sad, comedic caricature of Maverick Carter stands in stark contrast to the confident and smooth-talking LeBron emissary deftly maneuvering around New York” last week. Carter last Monday “huddled” with Believe Entertainment Owners DAN GOODMAN and BILL MASTERSON, discussing the launch of “The LeBrons,” a 10-episode animated cartoon on YouTube. Carter later that day “met with HARVEY SPEVAK, an owner in the Equinox Fitness Club chain.” On Tuesday, he “represented himself and LeBron in meetings with Suite 850, a New York-based group of creative entrepreneurs and brand marketers.” On Wednesday, Carter announced he and James “are going into business with the owners of the Red Sox.” Nike VP/Global Basketball Marketing LYNN MERRITT said, “The transition that Maverick made from ordinary guy in Akron to marketing professional representing LeBron is extremely difficult. There are not a lot of people who can do what Maverick has done.” N.Y.-based marketing company Translation CEO STEVE STOUTE said, “Despite the bumps in the road, what Maverick and LeBron are doing, should be looked at as showing where athletes are going in terms of how their business is handled” (FOXSPORTS.com, 4/8).